“Can we shake off the numbness that allows us to look the other way as 30,000 people die everyday, including today, of the consequences of poverty,” he said. “That is, by the way, the equivalent of a Virginia Tech shooting every 90 seconds, and goes on 24/7.”

And then Mr. Kristof closed his speech with a story from Darfur that involved sex slavery and the beheading of a father in front of his two daughters by the Janjaweed militia.